


a heavy burden (of fangs)

by snailmeamail



Category: Destiny 2 - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Corruption, Descent into Madness, Other, Panic Attacks, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25183087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snailmeamail/pseuds/snailmeamail
Summary: Years from now, Dredgen Yor won’t be able to tell you how it had happened. How he had received a power he was worthy of, how he had learned to keep the peace–all he will know is that in the Hellmouth, a Witch can come with a heavy burden, fangs and ambitions bared, and if she comes to you?Take the fangs and make them your own.
Kudos: 8





	1. The Burden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starl1ghtChild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starl1ghtChild/gifts).



> to star, the person who made this fic happen <3

Another blot of ink splatters the rim of the bathroom sink. _Drip, drip, drip._ A drop falls onto his lips; it’s a sickly sweetness, like rotting fruit. That is what has become of Rezyl Azzir, hero of Six Fronts, Twilight Gap, and of the people: he is rotting inside out. His eyes hurt. He’s slept, at most, four hours in the last two days. The breath in his lungs rattles like a ping-pong ball in a tin can. His hands are now unsteady, unable to grip the edges of the sink because of the slick black sludge that coats his fingers.

When he had thrashed his way through his latest nightmare to consciousness, the front of his shirt had already been stained black and the world had tasted just a bit more like rotting pumpkin–that poisonous sweet–than it had usually been when one of these… _attacks_ happened.

He doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror. His eyes, once a hopeful green, have lost their vibrancy. They’re just as grey as the circles under his eyes. Rezyl wipes off as much as the black sludge he can with his calloused knuckles, but it doesn’t go away. It _never_ goes away. It smears and stains–it boasts its permanency. In the first month post Luna, it had never been this bad. His eyes had ached like hell but it had been nothing compared to now.

Now, he couldn’t control it. He couldn’t go outside, not like this. It screamed _corruption_ , just as the tattoo sleeves on his arms do. Once, they had been empty outlines. It being comprised of long, flowing shapes and roses, Rezyl had always thought of it as a river, with roses floating down it.

He’s not sure what to think of it now, when it’s all been filled with a pure black, as if every time these nightmares happen the tears only come so that they fall from to fill them. The roses are gone, choked by the muteness of the color. They’re nothing but blobs of ink now. He had only realized his tattoos were filling when his Ghost had pointed it out. Rezyl had tried to explain it away by saying he spent a bit of glimmer to fill them in–being all too aware of their emptiness and wanting something solid–but that explanation had fallen through when the Ghost had questioned why a half the shapes had been only half filled in.

Rezyl had learned then that his tattoos had become measurements–how much of him was now Theirs? He knows the answer, and has known it every time he takes his shirt off and sees the patterns on his back and arms completely filled in.

He returns to the mirror with reluctance. He glowers at his reflection. His hair is a ghostly white, with the last strands of black standing their ground at the roots like Rezyl had had at Six Fronts. He brushes it out of his face. Every day, the black blot around his eyes and nose spreads bigger and bigger like a Rorschach. The one tonight looks like a rotting tree trunk.

Underneath the grime are the features of Rezyl Azzir: the long nose, the three scars–two arched across his nose, and a smaller one on his temple–the scruffy beard that still retains some of its original darkness, but is slowly fading too. Underneath this smothering burden is the same hero everyone knows and loves.

So, why isn’t it him staring back from the mirror?

_You are who we made you to be. Who you wanted to become. Let go, Rezyl Azzir. Let go of this city, of this name–there will be nothing for you here._

“No, no–” He shakes his head, flinging tears this way and that–”I can’t…I won’t.” From an outsider’s perspective, it would seem to them that Rezyl has finally lost it, after two City-wide battles and countless years under the Traveler, to Luna. He speaks to no one in particular, no one that anyone else can see. They speak back.

And he listens and hears:

_We are the only **ghosts** you will ever need._

Someone–something–knocks on the door. He jerks around, the Rose already in his grip, though can he really call it the Rose anymore? What was once silver and grand is now a charred husk, slowly growing to look like it was carved out of sea-weathered stone. Bones adorn its chamber. “Who’s there?” He hisses, leveling his trophy. The pain in his eyes is unbearable–as if he’d go blind at any second.

_We are the only **eyes** you will ever need._

He dares to closes his eyes, just for a moment of respite. “Hold it together, hold it together…” He mutters this mantra under his breath, a prayer he has worn out every night he doesn’t sleep. His prayers often reach the wrong sort of deities.

“Reyl,” the softest mechanical voice says, and yet Rezyl doesn’t falter. He keeps his aim true. “It’s Aster. When I woke up, you were gone. I was worried. Are you alright?”

He lowers the gun. It’s just his Ghost. Of course. He wants to laugh at himself, but it just doesn’t come because of that eternal _what if_? Logically, there would be no one else in the apartment. It really is just him and Aster most days. What little flings he’s had with Guardians here and there had never truly stuck. It’s more him than them, but that’s neither here nor there.

Of course it’s his Ghost. _Is it_? It is. It is. It couldn’t be anyone else. No other speaks to him with such bare worry. But this isn’t the first time the Ghost has spoken to him with that kind of tone. The other week, the Ghost had confessed his doubts–how what he has become is not what the Traveler wanted. He had continued confessing, but it had been a little harder to understand him when he had begun talking softer and softer.

When he had asked Aster about his confession the following day, the Ghost hadn’t known what he had been talking about. That was realization number two, and the underlying cause of his paranoia. The conversation had been a hallucination. A nightmare. The point being: it had never happened.

“Are you truly Aster,” he demands, “or is another…another _sick_ manifestation?”

“I–of course I’m Aster,” the Ghost scoffs, but his chirps are concerned. “Rezyl, I’m as real as you are. As that _gun_ is. The Darkness coming off of it–I can’t tell if it’s the gun’s or _yours_. You have to open the door. Please, let me in. Let me help you with this…this thing you’re fighting. A Guardian can’t fight without his Ghost.”

Rezyl falls silent. His heart beats in his nape and he coughs; it come’s out wet. An ugly, putrid mix of bright red and ink. He kneels and the Rose clatters to the tiles. He is sick and tired and strained and he knows as much, if the blood is anything to go off of. He has to keep it together. He cannot falter so soon, to a _sickness_ of all things.

“Rezyl?” Aster continues, “I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately; you’ve rarely slept or eaten; you take patrols hours at a time without telling me; you don’t talk to me or the Vanguard anymore, let alone other _Guardians_ ; you’re obsessed with the Hive. Ever since you adorned their fangs like trophies, you’ve become someone else entirely–”

He coughs again. Each little puff that racks his body makes his head pulse and throb. The fluorescent lights in the bathroom are much too bright. He can’t believe he hasn’t replaced them yet, despite living in this apartment for years. The blood, though it seems too sweet to be called blood, drips down his chin and neck and stains his shirt.

He is dizzy; the room doesn’t stop spinning, no matter how much he begs it to in his head. His heartbeat is erratic, but distant, as if it’s not the heartbeat of the great Rezyl Azzir, who kneels on the bathroom floor, lips and teeth black and tasting, unfortunately, of licorice, a result of the sickness festering in him. It had entered his veins; eventually it would reach his heart…

…and it would beat no more.

“–Rezyl? Are you there?”

The Guardian huffs, shakes his head, then wobbles to his feet. He wipes his mouth. He spits into the sink and turns on the faucet, watching it all go down the drain. He gargles. The tears have stopped. They left behind black lines on his cheeks. He rinses it off, but he knows it’s futile in the long run. They will come back.

But now it is quiet, and Rezyl savours the blessed silence, even if his heart is in his throat. He composes himself. He might be sick, but he is not weak. He is goddamn Rezyl Azzir, champion of Six Fronts, of Twilight Gap, and of the Crucible. He picks up the pieces and puts them back together.

“I am Rezyl Azzir,” he mutters to himself in confirmation.

 _You and I both know that isn’t true._ He isn’t sure if it’s his thought–or Theirs. He flicks the lights off. He takes the Rose with him and opens the door.

Aster, named for the flower of the same name, has the color of one; a gentle purple. His shell lacks shine; Rezyl hasn’t polished it in weeks and the Ghost can hardly apply it himself. Aster reels back in surprise as the door swings open.

“Good Traveler!” he exclaims, then comes back forward cautiously. “You look…”

“…like shit,” Rezyl closes his eyes briefly. It’s not as quiet anymore. It’s raining. The window in his room back down the hall rattles loud enough for him to hear. “I’m alright, Aster. I just need to sleep.” These are the most words he’s said to the Ghost in two weeks.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” the Ghost sighs, “I was going to say–” he does a double take, then floats right up to Rezyl’s face–”Are your eyes _glowing_?”

He grunts, then walks past Aster into the hallway. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he growls, too tired to tolerate this.

The hall is dark, with the only light being the occasional flashes of lighting that dance across the floor, flecking the hardwood with the silhouettes of raindrops on the windows. He’s intimately familiar with the halls of his own home, so he can make it around just fine despite the low visibility. Aster follows behind, sputtering.

“You don’t get to just shrug me off,” the Ghost spits with vitriol, “after _weeks_ of not telling me a single damn thing. You know how many times I’ve seen you, Rezyl, in those fourteen days? Once; you were _asleep_.”

“So for not very long, then,” Rezyl snorts, shouldering his way into his room. The rattling is much louder. His bed is as messy as he left it. Aster’s charging port is on the desk, though it’s more of a nest than it is a machine, comprised of soft cloths and blankets. The Guardian sits down on the edge of the bed. The Ghost hovers, shell twitching anxiously.

“I can’t believe you think this is funny.”

“It _isn’t_ funny.” Rezyl shrugs.

“No, it isn’t! What if you had gotten into trouble and I wasn’t there to help you?” He darts this way and that, a Ghost’s way of pacing. “It’s just like the bloody Hellmouth on Luna all over again. Every day that you brought me there and left me at the precipice to pursue the Hive, I never knew if we were going to leave together.”

“I didn’t want you to see the things I did.” Rezyl leans back, staring up at the ceiling. “The fury of the Hive is not something anyone should witness. This is my burden to bear, Ghost, not yours. Leave it at that.” He turns over, towards the window. The drops that strike the window are relentless. The lights of the City blink in the blue.

“ _You_ are my burden to bear, as your Ghost.” Aster covers his view of the window. Rezyl can tell he’s angry; his shell is tighter than Vanguard restrictions. “Nothing has changed that. Not even two weeks of complete silence. Besides, you wouldn’t know the sort of things I saw before I met you. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself If you died, much less you for leaving me alone in the first place.” Aster leaves that hanging in the air. Thunder rumbles above them.

It isn’t like Rezyl is lying. He really hadn’t wanted the Ghost to be enveloped in so much Darkness. Though, now with the Rose and his slow deterioration and the whispers, it doesn’t matter. There will always be Darkness, as long as there is Light. And that is the problem, the root of poison: Light. This cursed existence, to make friends and enemies only with other immortals, to cut ties with the Lightless.

It’s not as if Guardians perceive themselves as superior; it’s just better for both parties involved. Their immortality isn’t guaranteed, either. Such high power is tangled in the many strings attached. What’s the point of it anymore?

Rezyl is grateful to be alive. Grateful to the Traveler. But he is not satisfied just yet. There are things in this city, in this world, that have to be fixed. Monsters to be slain. People with powers they don’t deserve that needed to be cut down. He’s seen it everywhere. Luna, Earth, anywhere the Fallen or Hive or man have planted themselves; there is no peace where they run rampant.

He knows in some small part of himself that it’s no way of peacekeeping–enforcing it through fear and blood–but for once, it will have to take the wrong form of ideology to get the job done. He’s tried the Traveler’s way and it only postpones the battle for another day.

No more. There _will_ be peace. Nothing like Twilight Gap or Six Fronts or the massacre on Luna will ever happen again.

Then and there, lying on his back in his bed, listening to the distant thunder and his Ghost rambling on, Rezyl realizes what he has to do and vows to himself this: _I will listen this time._

Aster returns to his charging port with a huff. Rezyl turns his head, rustling the sheets, to watch the Ghost’s path.

“Aster?” he says to the Ghost. He says nothing to his Guardian, understandably frustrated with his silence. The Guardian frowns and decides not the badger at him any more than he has already.

He turns his head back to the ceiling. What Rezyl doesn’t know is how the little Light will factor into this new plan of his. What would he even say to his proposal? Would he try and dissuade him, tell him that it’s a fruitless endeavour? It wouldn’t matter. Rezyl is the Guardian; Aster is the Ghost. Rezyl says what goes. He closes his eyes.

 _I’m ready to listen_ , he thinks, sending it out into the black expanse behind his eyelids. He falls asleep to the sound of the storm, looming and inevitable, and it, in turn, listens to him.


	2. The Fangs

A warm palm cups Rezyl’s cheek.

It’s a familiar touch, maybe of a love long lost. It soothes him, and for a moment he is alright. This is the touch of home. Another hand brushes his hair in long, slow strokes, brushing silver curls out of his face. He sighs contentedly. It doesn’t feel like a dream, but it is, isn’t it? He hasn’t felt this kind of comfort in a long time, especially in the past few months.

He had felt the same way when he emerged from the Hellmouth; the light on his face, however artificial, and his gratitude for being out of the dark at long last. He enjoys it as much as possible, because he knows what comes next.

Both hands cup his face now. Rezyl notices not that the palms are not smooth-- they’re gnarled and knotted like rotting bark. The texture makes his cheeks itchy and in frustration he longs to scratch. He keeps his eyes closed. Rezyl doesn’t know what he’ll see if he opens them.

“ _You said you were ready to listen_ ,” a voice says, feminine and cool, but just as rough as her hands. “ _Here I am_.”

“To whom do I owe the honour?” he replies. The voice comes from his left, like the person/creature/voice is sitting on the edge of the bed.

“ _You kill my consort, take his chitin_ ,” she tuts, fingernails--claws---digging into his temple. He grunts. “ _and yet, you do not know his lady’s name. I thought Guardians were honourable_.”

He remembered the consort. A tough battle, but one he had no trouble winning. “We have...good intentions, to say the least.” A hand once again brushes through his hair, and he sighs unconsciously. “What are you doing?”

“ _Observing my trophy_ ,” she laughs. It’s surprisingly gentle, if not patronising. “ _You’re very beautiful, Rezyl Azzir. You’re strong. Your hair tells of your age--years spent defending the Traveler, I’m sure_.”

It would’ve indeed been a sign of his age, had his hair not turned silver the night after Twilight Gap. He could’ve explained it away with the stress of the battle, but he had had a feeling it hadn’t been that, because if that had been the case he would’ve been grey after Six Fronts, or even Burning Lake.

“ _Open your eyes for me_.”

He does, without hesitation. Two--three--green eyes in pyramid formation, glowing so harshly he instinctively shuts his eyes. He opens them again, squinting to brace himself. The eyes are, in a way, hauntingly beautiful. They are the green his had once been.

“ _How grey they’ve become--how grey you have become. Your hair, your eyes, the pallor of your skin...You’re sick, Rezyl Azzir. But I can help you. We are the only_ ** _cleansing_** _you will ever need_.”

He sits up, and the hand stays on his cheek. Against his better judgment, he leans into it, relishing the warm touch, however inhuman it is. It is the kindest touch he’s felt from another being all these months. He hasn’t realized just how starved of physical contact he is until this very moment. He’s become so utterly _weak_.

“ _Yes, you have_ ,” the voice hums, “ _Why, you’re not even sure any of this is real, are you? No matter. I know of your quest for peace in this damned world. I know of the barricades that stop that reality from coming to fruition--it’s your own weakness, your own lack. It’s not your fault that you lack, as every Guardian lacks any real power, but you came to me. You destroyed my consort and took his place_.”

Rezyl leans away, shaking his head. “I’m...that wasn’t my mission.” He’s quite sleepy, head heavy, as if every hour of sleep he should’ve gotten is coming back to him all at once. His mouth feels like putty.

“ _No_ ,” she laughs again, “ _Guardians mean well, as you said, and good intentions rarely lead you anywhere. You’re not as good as you think you are. You can be so much more than ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ You can be beautiful. Because even demons were from some sort of heaven, once_.”

“My tattoos,” Rezyl shakes his head again, as if it’ll scatter the powder of sleep from his eyes. “Is that...why you did it? Why you filled them in?”

“I never got your name.” Something sharp pokes at his gum. He opens his mouth, thumbing his teeth--and reels in surprise when a tooth stabs the pad of his thumb. He tastes a drop of copper. He goes the other way and finds another fang and two more on his upper teeth. His incisors have lengthened. He has _fangs_.

“ _Among...other things. But aren’t they wonderful now?”_ She takes his arm and rolls up his sleeve. His tattoos emerge, plain on his skin. They are fully black, when a mere hours ago they had just been half-filled. _“You are whole now, Rezyl Azzir. You are my champion. This title I do not grant lightly. You are a hero...no, that’s not the right word. You are a_ peacekeeper _worthy of my attention. Will you do as I ask of you_?”

“ _Xyor, the Blessed_ ,” Xyor says, her voice a little raspier like the Hive.

“Yor?” He tips his head. “That is your name?”

“ _No. It is_ yours _. It has always been yours, since the day you stepped into the Hellmouth alone. Will you, who was once Rezyl Azzir, hero of the Last City, who is now Yor, my champion, and the thorns of a rose, take your place as my consort?_ ”

“To keep the peace,” Rezyl Azzir vows, “and to change this wretched world.”

Lightning flashes. For a moment he can see the horrible, knotted, and gnarled chitin of a Witch standing tall above him, green eyes pure and unwavering, long, tattered robes flowing. Her hands are claws, black and rotten. The sight erases any idea of comfort she may have brought him. It turns his stomach over. The small taste of copper in his mouth is sharper now, spreading across his tongue. He tries not to gag.

The room goes dark. Thunder claps. When the next flash of lightning comes, Xyor is gone.

\--

Rezyl Azzir wakes up.

It’s morning now. The sunlight streams in from the window, striking his eyes. He looks away. Aster is asleep in his nest of cloths. Rezyl stands and stretches. He groans as a few bones pop into place. The Guardian packs clothes, ammunition--he packs lightly. Once he comes back, he’ll take Aster and they’ll leave the City for good. The only peace to be made is out there in the wilds.

He puts his bag at the foot of his bed. He gets dressed in the same armor he had worn on Luna--fur collar, chitin along his arm--and that’s exactly where he goes.

When he’s in the Hellmouth, every creature, big or small, seems to move aside for him, as if they know who he is and who he belongs to. Good. They already fear him. He reaches Xyor’s chamber. The Witch floats above him and Thralls bow down to her. She turns and looks at him with what he can say is satisfaction, not surprise.

“What did you call me, last night?” He asks, looking up at her. “A _thorn_?”

“ _You are the thorns of the roses you once planted. Deceitful, painful, but beautiful nonetheless_.”

“A thorn,” Yor repeats. He takes the Rose out of his holster, examining it under the eerie green light. Little green eyes fester in the holes in its chamber. “I like that.”

He kneels to her, mimicking her Thralls. Xyor laughs, a sound that echoes through the chamber and around his skull.

Years from now, Yor won’t be able to tell you how it had happened. How he had received a power he was worthy of, how he had learned to keep the peace--all he will know is that in the Hellmouth, a Witch can come with a heavy burden, fangs and ambitions bared, and if she comes to you?

Take the fangs and make them your own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading <3 lemme know if you'd like more content with yor :D!


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